Yes, You’ve Chased Your Kids off Facebook—Here’s Where They Went

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Has your Facebook feed become quieter lately? Once the hub of
communication, it seems that the majority of people posting are
Martha Stewart, your sister-in-law who wants you to play Bubble
Witch Saga and your old high school friends that you haven't seen
in years. Where are the kids, the ones who are supposed to set
the trends for all of us in technology and style?

They're still there, but aren't talking. As a parent, you have no
one to blame but yourself. Consider this exchange on Reddit,
following news that Facebook was concerned it was losing younger
users to alternate networks.

"It's never been the same since my mother and college professors
friended me," poster ihcun wrote. And to that, fizzbar said,
"That's why it's called Mombook now...."

The percentage of U.S. moms on Facebook has grown rapidly, from
50 percent in 2010 to 72 percent in 2012. In that same period,
the average age of Facebook users climbed from 38 to 41. Kids
have turned to other networks where they don't have to worry
about old folks monitoring their exchanges.

Where the kids are

It's easy to find your kids and friends on Facebook, but you may
find it more difficult to do so on other networks because some of
these sites don't require a real name to set up an account.
However, once you find them, you can usually follow accounts
without "friending."

Tumblr is the most popular social network for
teens, outpacing Facebook 61 percent to 55 percent, according to
RightMixMarketing. Tumblr began as a blogging platform, but has
kept pace with teens' quick-to-post preferences, such as photos
and quotes.

To find people on Tumblr, go to Tumblr's look-up page where your
Facebook and Gmail contacts will be searched for Tumblr account
matches. Choose who you would like to follow from the list.

Twitter, the reigning champ of the short-form
post, has attracted a significant teen user base — about 22
percent of all teens express their thoughts in 140-character
tweets. [See also: Sweet
Compliments Spread on Twitter ]

To find people on Twitter, use the search box and type in the
person's name. Twitter finds matches based on the name used when
the account was created, which means you can find people who use
a pseudonym on Twitter if they registered with their real name.

Instagram boasts about the same percentage of
teen users as Twitter. Here's where ex-Facebook photos have found
a home — more than 40 million photos are posted every day,
according to Instagram.

There are two ways to find people on Instagram
. You can search individually by using Instagram's Discover tab
or you can find Facebook friends who have Instagram accounts by
using the "Find Friends" feature under your profile options (tap
the gear icon).

Snapchat, a picture-messaging app for iPhone and
Android, is used almost exclusively by kids. Accounts can be set
so that only those the user has accepted as a friend (similar to
Facebook) can send an instant message. Or it can be public, which
means anyone can send a message — if they know the user's name.

You can ask Snapchat to search your phone's address book for
numbers that match Snapchat accounts. You can choose to add these
people to your Snapchat contacts and then send messages. However,
Snapchat is not Facebook — there are few adults here, so you're
better off sending a regular text. [See also: 15-Year-Old
Girl Explains Snapchat ]

Reddit is a social news site filled with
categories that are appealing to teens, such as gaming, advice
animals (yes, advice from all kinds of critters shown as memes),
pics (photos) and funny, which also includes a lot of photos.

Reddit does not require any personal information at
sign-up, and most users choose a pseudonym. (That's why there are
no numbers for Reddit users.) The only way you're likely to find
someone you know on Reddit is by asking friends for screen names.